RiverPark to have apartments for mentally ill

Ten apartments in the new RiverPark housing development in Oxnard will be built for poor adults living with schizophrenia and other serious mental illnesses.

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved an agreement to spend $1 million in one-time "extraordinary" funds awarded through Proposition 63, a state initiative expanding services to the mentally ill.

The county secured the special funding because of the area's high cost of living, said Carolyn Briggs, housing director for the county Behavioral Health Department.

The apartments are in the first phase of a 140-unit community within RiverPark. The units will be developed, owned and managed by Cabrillo Economic Development Corp., a nonprofit, affordable-housing producer in the county. Other occupants will include working families and perhaps agriculture employees, said Rodney Fernandez, executive director of Cabrillo.

The mix of population will be good for mentally ill residents of the development, Briggs said.

"We wanted … a mix of population in the units so people have other role models," she said.

Permanent housing is a critical component in the treatment of the mentally ill, she said.

"We have seen people make dramatic adjustments in their lives once the housing situation gets stable," she said. Affordable rents free up income for them to do something besides survive, such as taking college classes, she said.

"Once they've got some money in their pockets, they've got a fighting chance."

Fernandez said construction of the units will begin this month. He hopes to open the apartments by the end of 2008.

Cabrillo also will build a separate community room with private offices that the county mental health department and other agencies can use to assist the clients.

"It's part of a trend," Fernandez said. "These units are so hard to come by where you can mix the population and provide them with the services they need."

Developing stable housing for the mentally ill is also part of the county's 10-year strategic plan to end homelessness. That plan calls for establishing 275 permanent beds for chronically homeless people, many of whom are mentally ill.

The units in RiverPark will help, said Meloney Roy, acting director of the Behavioral Health Department.

"This is permanent housing. This isn't a hotel voucher," Roy said. "That's a big step in the right direction of supporting the 10-year plan."

Cabrillo will select the tenants from those referred by Behavioral Health. Eligible people must be seriously mentally ill, homeless or at risk of becoming homeless and low income, Briggs said.

The $1 million will be used by Cabrillo for initial construction costs and rent subsidies for the next 15 years, according to Roy.

Tuesday's approval by the Board of Supervisors was the last regulatory hurdle, from Briggs' perspective.

"When we see those units come out of the ground and people move in, that's truly the great day," she said.